The nation speaks

The Nation Speaks on 7 September 2013; however the heavens determine the outcome.

For those not familiar with the system, here’s a simplistic run-down on how the electoral process works, from this astrologer’s perspective.

As voting is compulsory in Australia, generally speaking about 95% of those registered to vote do so by a secret ballot; turning out to local schools and community centres throughout the country between the hours of 8am and 6pm local time on the date set for a federal election.

On Saturday 7 September 2013 there will be two sets of voting ballots to be completed.

House of Representatives

The Senate.

Members of the House of Representatives seek re-election each time there is a federal election; their term is generally three years.

For federal elections (as opposed to state or local elections), the nation is divided into 150 electoral divisions of varying sizes.

The boundaries can be changed according to demographic changes eg. as one part of the country becomes more populated than another.

Australian voters choose among the candidates who are standing in their local division.

Candidates are either members of a party or represent themselves as ‘independents’.

To complicate matters, there are preference votes to be taken into consideration (second picks), however I don’t include that info here.

Basically, the party with the most votes overall (not each state) wins.

The Senate meanwhile is basically a six-year term for each of the six states and so as a result only half of them need to stand for a new term each federal election. So for this federal election we have six states x 6 = 36 vacancies. The two territories; ACT and the Northern Territory have two senate positions each and they come up for renewal every three years. That makes another 4 vacancies bringing the total vacancies in the senate to 40.

This electoral system evolved as Australia grew over the last couple of hundred years; created so as to give each part of the country and its people a fair representative and not have the big cities having all the say in how the country was run.

Note: There are plenty of places online where anyone can learn more fully about the electoral system. I am not a member of any political party and my interest in this process is as an astrologer. This enquiry is offered as a community service; I have no pecuniary interest in the outcome.

Re the House of Representatives, as far as our astrology enquiry goes, we will address the marginal seats only; the divisions which reveal trends of the general public’s vote. The winners of the marginal seats are usually those who determine which party is to win the election.

Providing we can get the birth data on the candidates, we can endeavour to suggest the winner in each of these marginal seats by an enquiry of the astrology charts for the two main candidates in these swing seats. The incumbents data is available on the public record. As to the data of the opposing candidates, we rely on their cooperation in our enquiry.

The marginal seats only require a small swing to change hands and therefore are typically the focus of most campaign resources and attract celebrity candidates e.g., Forde in Queensland.

Fifty-four House of Reps swinging-seats in all for our enquiry:

New South Wales, 17

Northern Territory, 2

Queensland, 17

Victoria, 10

Western Australia, 8

ACT and SA, 0

Tasmania (2 of interest)

Following the election, due to the lack of data forthcoming from candidates, I have to concede defeat for this enquiry.

By utilising bi-wheels and the classic astrology interpretation of planetary positions together with Mundane Astrology considerations of planetary and houses interpretation, we will endeavour to suggest who will win a seat in the House of Representatives and which senators will take up their positions in The Senate.

Note: This method of enquiry has been devised by myself and remains un-tested, so I suggest that you keep your skeptic hat well and truly planted, on your head. We are in the realm of possibility, not science.

Our posts on this blog relating to astrology and elections:

A federal offence: Election 2010 and why it took three weeks for Julia to take up the top job.